Shepherd
Consumer and social
book recommendations
SHOW HN2025
How HN took it
1 positive, 8 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 9 critical, out of 18 comments about the project. Thread score -0.29.
Privacy: 0 for, 3 againstIdea: 1 for, 2 againstDesign: 0 for, 3 againstPricing: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Good idea; the book twins and overlap feature is useful
From 2 comments
Sweet, looking now to get some recommendations! I'm actually surprised more people don't have my two favorites overlapped more often (Mistborn and Name of the Wind)! Question:…
eastoeast on HNLibraryThing (https://www.librarything.com/home) has a nice feature where you can find people whose books have the strongest overlap as yours. When I first entered all the books…
BeetleB on HN
Objections
Requires login to vote, raising privacy concerns
From 2 comments
tying this data to a login instead of a pure cookie model like hn seems dangerous.
coderatlarge on HNI’d be glad to share my top 3 2025 reads but I’d like to do so without having to create an account or link to Google for authentication.
loloquwowndueo on HN
Recommendations can be dominated by a single trait like author gender with no clear list context
From 2 comments
I put in Translation State by Anne Leckie and at first glance tye recommendations looked good. But at a deeper glance, what I was getting was "female scifi authors". Exclusively…
esperent on HNI have no idea, I clicked on the search icon at the top, then typed "translation state" and then opened the first result. It didn't look like a handpicked list, I assumed I was…
esperent on HN
Ads on recommendation pages look like cash grab
From 1 comment
100 Books like Project Hail Mary (https://shepherd.com/books-like/project-hail-mary) : - Travels with Charley : With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates…
analogpixel on HN
Covers are off-putting; suggests showing synopsis
From 1 comment
Nice, I think you should try replacing the book cover images with a short synopsis of the book, as I find many of the book covers off-putting.
ludicrousdispla on HN
Sample size is small and many authors are missing
From 3 comments
Looks like a cool idea, but I can't find my authors in there.
ChrisMarshallNY on HNI looked for Glen Cook[0], who is a well-known SF author for decades (and is still writing). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glen_Cook
ChrisMarshallNY on HNone of my perpetual quests is more books like "dreamsnake", so I was definitely disappointed not to see it in there (it's an older book, but it did win both the hugo and the…
zem on HN
Requests
Show most frequently loved books alongside search results
From 1 comment
Sweet, looking now to get some recommendations! I'm actually surprised more people don't have my two favorites overlapped more often (Mistborn and Name of the Wind)! Question:…
eastoeast on HN
Filter out data from people who listed a chosen book as a favorite
From 1 comment
I'd be interested in a filtering feature where you could pick a book and disregard all data from anyone who has it listed as one of their favorites.
patja on HN
Make the demographic read-count question optional
From 1 comment
Recommended this to a friend who hates keeping track of "how many" kinds of things, and was dismayed at having to say how many books they've read (which they really don't want to…
chris_st on HN
Allow account creation without email or linking to other accounts
From 2 comments
well hn allows voting without email
coderatlarge on HNno ties to my other accounts would be ideal from my perspective i understand that it’s easier to get a stronger “trust” signal by being more invasive but hopefully the product…
coderatlarge on HN
Surface book-like lists more clearly on mobile
From 1 comment
On mobile it took me three tries to find how to get from "Dungeon Crawler" to "Books Like Dungeon Crawler Carl" - you might consider surfacing those lists outside the "what is…
cdev_gl on HN
Questions
Why does a book list recommend unrelated time-loop books
From 1 comment
100 Books like Project Hail Mary (https://shepherd.com/books-like/project-hail-mary) : - Travels with Charley : With Charley, his French poodle, Steinbeck drives the interstates…
analogpixel on HN
How is the voting data protected and verified against fake accounts
From 2 comments
This feature doesn't require a login; you just put in the book/author you love, and it returns matches. If you want to vote, you'll need to log in. We needed substantial…
bwb on HNThe problem is authors will sign up for fake accounts to vote for their own books, so having an email with each account is a big trust factor that helps us a bit. I'll think on…
bwb on HN
Alternatives named
LibraryThing
From 1 comment
LibraryThing (https://www.librarything.com/home) has a nice feature where you can find people whose books have the strongest overlap as yours. When I first entered all the books…
BeetleB on HN
Literature Map
From 1 comment
Previous effort in this space: https://www.literature-map.com/
WillAdams on HN
LLM chatbots for recommendations
From 1 comment
These days I generally use LLMs as a universal recommendation engine. I put together a list of things I like from a category and ask “What is missing?” Or sometimes I’ll input…
cainxinth on HN